78 



TUE GEOLOGIST. 



be able to construct for his imagination a right measure of their colossal 

 relations ; and yet all these granite giants are far exceeded as to the im- 

 pression which they make upon the eye by that steep abyss unto which 

 the Monte Rosa sinks at the head of the valley of Macugnaga. It is 

 the gi'eatest vertical magnitude of the European continent. The limestone 

 Alps, the Diablerets, Dolden and Gespaltenhorn, and Blumlis Alp.«, show 

 mighty rock-fronts, but they shrink in presence of these granite walls to 

 masses of the second order. 



"We called granite the historic stone of the earth. It is so in the Alps 

 in more than one respect. Its solemn rock-walls were often memorials of 

 great deeds, which may be compared to the sublimest moments of classical 

 antiquity. The undaunted Hussian SuwarofF, a modern Epaminondas, 

 vrho would rather have been buried in the clefts of the rocks than have 

 given up his post, when his columns had repulsed the French under Gau- 

 din in the narrow valley of Tremolu, left the heroic words ' Suwarow 

 Victor ' carved on the granite wall for an everlasting remembrance. iSText 

 day the cliffs of gneiss were witnesses of equally heroic deeds, where 

 the Devil's Bridge spans the stormy waters of the Seuss with its bold 

 arch. Over the granitic deserts of the St. Bernard, Bonaparte led his 

 army to the victory of Marengo, in May, 1800 ; and when the Simplon 

 Pass, the first great Alpine road, had been pierced by his orders, he had 

 carved in the opening of the gallery of Gondo the words ' Acre Italo, 

 MDCCCV., iN'ap. Imp.' Andreas Hofer, the host of Passeyr, was born in 

 the granite country, and between granite rocks he fought his glorious 

 fights for the freedom of the Tyrol. . . . Benedict Fontana breathed out 

 his hero-soul upon the gneiss crystals of the Malser-haide. . . . And then 

 the mighty December fight of 1478, in the Livinenthal, when a handful 

 of herdsmen destroyed ten times their number of Milanese under Count 

 Borelli, till the snows of Bellinzona were red with their blood. Then the 

 hero-graves of the three thousand Confederates at Arbeno, who sank in a 

 despairing fight before twenty-four thousand Lombards in 1422. The 

 double blood-baptism of the Valaisans at Ulrichen and on the Grimsel in 

 1422, and many other proofs of manly courage and bold deeds — are they 

 not remembrances which have carved their memorial in letters of flame for 

 men's hearts on the rock-tablets of these granite colossi ? 



" But the dull stone tells us of still more, of times lying further back, 

 of an epoch when the Alps stood as they stand to-day, but when the 

 human race was not. These memorial stones are the 'erratic blocks.'" 



The quotations we have given will show the eloquent turn of the author's 

 mind ; but from them it will be readily seen that while admitting tliat we 

 like tlie boldness of his speculations, and admire the truthfulness of some 

 of his remarks, we cannot always assure the soundness of his geological 

 statements. 



Erratic blocks, the x^agelfluh, landslips, ban-forests, the Wettertanne, 

 prostrate firs, and Alpine roses, chestnut-woods, cloud pictures, water- 

 falls and mountain snow-storms, avalanches, glaciers and Alpine summits, 

 mountain passes and Alpine roads, hospices, chalet-life, the goat-boy, the 

 wieldheuer, the Alpine feast, timber-fellers and floaters, mountaineers and 

 village-life in the Alps, all form topics equally delightful, treated in lan- 

 guage as fanciful or as wild as the subjects themselves, and containing 

 a great amount of facts and observations, to be read with interest by 

 geologists. To the general reader this must prove a charming book ; 

 but dealing as we do with a speciality, we can nevertheless recommend 

 it to the votaries of our science as an admirable description of Alpine 

 scenery and conditions, from the perusal of which they wiU rise with 

 new thoughts and ideas for deep reflection. 



